Do Not Judge Me!

My son, to whom I have given a pseudonym on-line for all the usual reasons, is very indulgent of my hobby.  He's become very good at Memoir '44 and its derivatives and recently gave me quite a game of Jena 20.

That said, he's been after me for a while to wander to his side of the proverbial field.  And, so, yeah, this happened...

He's been odd-and-ending his deck since Origins but I decided to buy a pre-constructed deck from the discount bin at a local Walgreens.  I'd never played the game before and was surprised how simple it is.  I suppose that's the demographic it's aiming at, but, again, my son is well advanced past the complexity level here.  If only there were a way to figure out monetizing the different derivations of French troops, we might have something.  "Dad, look here, I got the First Regiment of Marine Artillery!!"  Well, a fellow can hope.

In fairness, the pre-built deck didn't feel gimped at all.  This was something I was a bit surprised at as it seemed to play against the fierce monetization of the product.  Once this bad boy was powered up (three fire energy, don't you know), my son had very little to stop him.  I shudder to think, though,  what the huddled masses at Origins and GenCon would do to me.  I've dipped my toe into the YouTube and forum "best build" recommendations and have learned that the devotion to building a "best deck" is nothing short of Talmudic.

Twenty-five years after launch, I will confess I didn't hate the game and would play it again -- if only to make my son happy while I quietly set up 1806: Rossbach Avenged behind him

Command and Colors: Epic Ancients -- Gaugamela

I've long been a fan of the Command and Colors series, if only in that it allows one to play out straight-forward games -- as opposed to anything resembling a simulation -- in a limited period of time to a satisfactory conclusion.  These things cannot be said of many of C&C's more elaborate peers.

Tonight HL and I had a go at the epic Gaugamela scenario.  I've been listening to The Illiad of late and wanted something of that "push of spear", blood-on-bronze, semi-naked man battling that it evokes.  The setup is classic C&C, viz.: you get Darius' problems (no heavy infantry and three fewer command cards), Alexander's problem (many fewer fellows), and, yes, Alexander's Companions.

I decided to play matters fairly close to the event, at least initially.  I ran up my light horse and started plinking away at HL's left while refusing on my own left.  It takes no statistician to deduce, though, that trying to roll the sole green circle on a single die is not a recipe for success.

Yep, still there.

 HL, on the other hand, was having none of my nonsense.  He crashed into my phalanxes with his elephants and drove my psiloi hard and fast back onto their supports.  The single-block unit below is having the textbook definition of a bad day.

Seeing all this, I sent Alexander and his Companions into Darius' center-left.  I'd be curious to know the thoughts of more experienced ancients hands than I, but the Companions (three, three-block medium horse units that can ignore their first hit and flags) are a serious foe.  I didn't make matters any easier on Darius when I played "Clash of Shields" in the midst of the melee they caused granting each of my units two additional combat dice.

HL, sensing matters slipping away, played "I am Spartacus" and rolled reasonably well.  Alexander himself was forced to survive two leader rolls and was whittled all the way down to a single block.  In the end, though, it wasn't enough and the collapse of this sector alowed him to rack up the 12 victory blocks needed for the win.

The whole grand affair lasted less than three hours.  Much to recommend in this, I think.

Ogre -- Designer's Edition: Exercise K

I turned 50 a couple weeks ago and took the occasion to spend as much time as possible over two weekends playing wargames. Now, in general, my tastes have tended to heavier games of late, but, knowing I'd have a few old friends and HL to hand, I decided to take down something lighter namely the notorious "Exercise K" as played in the Ogre Designer's Edition.

For those unfamiliar with the former, the scenario is intended to represent a computer simulation testing the ability of ogres; no other way to explain the fact that you've got 12 ogres divided into four teams, each of which has two Mark IIIs and a single Mark V.

For those unfamiliar with the latter, this is the version of Ogre 6th edition that brought in nearly $1 million on Kickstarter and which comes in a box that could easily have four legs glued to the bottom and be turned into a coffee table.  I bought it from Amazon a couple years ago and let my free shipping nearly pay for a year of Amazon Prime.

The scenario is simple enough, the four teams start out at the four corners of the map.  Each corner has two radar stations and a single command post.  Points are scored by destroying the structures (big points), destroying ogres (fairly big points), and damaging ogres (smaller points).

My friend Rob -- who had to leave the game and was ably seconded by MB -- wound up winning the game.  While I started out with a significant initial advantage, I eventually fell to a grim fourth place as all three of my ogres were eventually incapacitated and then destroyed.

Some observations:

1.  This is a long scenario.  Allowing for the relatively brief learning of the rules, we went for the better part of seven hours.

2.  There's a natural human tendency to have ogres slam into one another.  This really ought to be resisted.  While ramming does rich amounts of damage to opponents' treads, they damage yours as well and they distract from the rich points to be earned in taking out structures.

3.  The original scenario was intended for 12 players playing on four teams.  While the four teams worked fine, there were moments where we were able to coordinate our teams far better than we thought they'd have been coordinated if there were two other players on our side.

4.  The ogre war room app -- available free in the store -- is an hoot and a great way to keep track of ogres as well as dice-rolling.  All but made for Exercise K.

Sprouty McBunstuff (at right) didn't make it.

Like I said, we got obsessed with ramming.

One of the last fights...

Remember Gordon! -- Campaign Game -- An Unsatisfying Finale

It will be remembered that my Anglo-Egyptian forces were making their slow way under the careful cover of their gunboats to the City of Omdurman.  They looked a bit like this:

At this point, we've already bounced several bands of Mahdists who, unwisely, attacked piecemeal through the gap in the hills to the North of our position as well as from behind.  I came quickly to realize that the basic premise of the game is that the A-E forces are going to wipe out just about everything the Mahdists can throw at them, but if so much as one Mahdist slips through the A-E defensive fire, it stands a very good chance of killing one or two units that the A-E army cannot lose.

One thing the Mahdists have a very difficult time doing, however, is taking out the A-E gunboats unless they're willing to line the West bank of the Nile island above with fortresses.

I continued my advance and soon had brought my Egyptian units to within sight of Omdurman -- the city visible at the top left of the photograph below.  While MB's Mahdists were able to kill all but a very few of these units in the end (they're the white regiments depicted in the below), by this point the Mahdists had suffered so many casualties that we both agreed the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

I wanted very much to like this game and it assuredly had its moments -- and I will give it another try -- but, in our first go, the tension that should have been so much a part of the actual fighting between the two sides got lost in an extremely convoluted firing sequence.  It runs like this:

1.  Mahdists Advance
2.  A-E Defensive Direct Fire (including Maxim guns)
3.  A-E Maxim gun second fire
4.  A-E howitzer fire (from gunboats)
5.  Mahdist fire
6.  Melee

And the combat itself -- counting, doubling, halving, &c., and then totaling combat factors before cross referencing the result on a chart -- seemed pleasant at first but really became a grind with so many units involved.  Related to this, the A-E army can quite easily get its fire power over the highest level allowed for on the chart making the addition of further forces all but wasteful, even if they're in the area.

It now seems clear to me that the only hope of the Mahdists is to gather their forces and hit the A-E army in waves tightly choreographed to wash up one after the other.  I hope it proves to be fun.  Thus far I'm not sure.

The final game state is below.